Description : Prior to becoming the Museum of Sydney, this site originally housed Australia's first Government House. We completed a full-scale recreation of a section of the facade of the first Government House within the foyer of the present Museum of Sydney. The wall incorporates some of the building materials retrieved from archaeological excavations of this site. A video inset in one of the windows conveys the dramatic and contested story of the house – its life, its demolition, archaeological digs and the mighty battle over its future, culminating in the birth of the Museum of Sydney in 1995.

Key challenges : The main challenge on this project was retrieving appropriate information to reconstruct the wall replicating precisely what once stood on the site. Detailed architectural records and archived information were difficult to source however, a series of archived photographs were recovered to assist and accompanied by research into typical details and dimensions from that period, assisted with the design and accurate reconstruction.